When the average age of menopause is reached, it represents the end stage of a natural transition in a woman's reproductive life. The point where the average age of menopause occurs is when estrogen and progesterone production decreases permanently to very low levels. In Menopause the ovaries stop producing eggs and a woman is no longer able to get pregnant naturally.

On average, menopause, also known as the "change of life", occurs by the age of 51 and can be confirmed by 12 following months without menstruation. Contrary to popular use, the term menopause does not refer to the process of hormonal change that results in the end of menstruation and fertility. Rather than this, when the average age of menopause comes, menopause is the end state of that process, the permanent cessation of a woman's menstrual period. The symptoms for which menopause, in its average age, is known are actually part of perimenopause , the transitional stage between premenopause and menopause.